Dead Above Us
by lionor
Summary: Winona Kirk is a woman made empty by her husband's death, and sometimes it's only her youngest son that can see her pain. As their lives spiral into darkness and danger, Jim has to cling to his own strength.
1. Chapter 1

His earliest memories were of his mother, sitting on the porch in the middle of the night. He'd wake up sometimes to the sound of her sobs, and hear the slam of the screen door to signal her exit. Sam never woke up – Sam could sleep deeper than a hibernating bear. And that was before Frank moved in, before his family twisted from something sad and pure to something dark and horrible.

One of those nights, when he was seven, he got up. The stairs creaked, but he didn't bother being cautious. He was old enough to sense the gravity of the situation, and yet young enough to keep asking questions. So he slunk down the creaky old stairs and out the rusty door and into his mother's tearstained lap.

"Jim, honey, what are you doing out here? Go back to bed!" she murmured, sniffing. He shook his head, and she let him hug her, childish warmth a comfort even in the balmy summer night. It was beautifully clear, the moon bright and the stars brilliant.

"Why do you do it?" he asked after some time. "Why come down here when everyone's asleep?"

"Because when I feel sad and think of your father, I want to look at the stars."

"What does dad have to do with stars?"

She closed her eyes. "Everything, Jim honey. That's where I met him, and where I left him."

Jim knew without ever having been explicitly informed that his father died for some grand reason somewhere far away in the sky, and that he himself had been born there. When he was even younger, he used to think he was made of stardust.

"Left him? I thought he left you."

"I guess it could be either way, sweetie," she choked, voice thick with a new batch of tears. Jim frowned in concern and edged a bit off her lap. "But it doesn't matter," she continued, between oncoming sobs. "He's dead, and sometimes I feel dead too. Hell, the stars could be dead above us and we'd be looking at corpses in the sky, which is all he is anymore. And sometimes I think I can't do this anymore, baby." Tears fell quickly and she gasped and Jim swallowed hard, forcing himself not to follow suit. She took a few shuddering breaths and gulped. "Forget I said any of that, hon, and go back to bed. I'm fine. Go on, good night!"

"Sleep tight," he whispered as he crept into the house.

A final sniff, and then, "I love you, Jim."

"I love you too, mama."

And it was a long time before either said the same again.

His sheets had gone cold and so had his heart. _Corpses in the sky_, he chanted, trying to change the words so they didn't hold such emptiness, such horror and grief. He had no concept of either by himself – sadness for his father was only something he filtered from his mother. Sam would never say anything about George, and Jim knew nothing of the man other than _he was very brave_, according to everyone when they learned of his parentage.

Jim fell asleep without hearing the screen door again, and when he awoke, it was dawn and she was already at work.

And so another few weeks slunk by and now, when he heard the door in the night, he didn't get up. _The stars could be dead above us and we'd be looking at corpses in the sky_. Was that all his father was? A corpse in the sky? That couldn't be, no, his father was brave and turned to star dust and he ought to be proud that his father was a great man. But his mother thought her husband was a corpse in the sky and every night he fell asleep imagining grinning Halloween skeletons in the stars, and he began to dread bedtime.


	2. Chapter 2

Then Frank came. Jim and Sam had never met their mother's brother, and she never seemed willing to talk much about him. Something about the glint in her eye when she looked at him made Jim wonder if Winona wished her brother was the corpse.

Sam decided immediately that he and Frank were a lost cause. Jim tried very much to like his new uncle – he'd never really had an adult other than his mother to look up to (teachers were too soft and frankly too stupid) – but he was a difficult man to love.

That's what his mother said: "Now boys, your uncle, he can be…difficult. Just trust me, this is for the best." Sam had scoffed and stamped to his room, but Jim had just gazed at his mother. _Instinct_, he thought. _Looking at the stars and calling Frank are just two sides of the same coin._ He'd read that metaphor in a book, and thought it sounded nice, even though he'd never seen physical currency. Credit wasn't multifaceted. But Frank was, so Jim tried very hard to see his better sides.

By the time he was eight, however, Jim had decided there really weren't better sides to Frank. Sam had all but moved in with his best friend, so Jim stayed home to deal with the shards of his mother as Frank broke yet another bottle of beer in frustration. "Damn it, Winona, you shouldn'ta had kids by that idiot. They'll grow up to be dumb Federation fucks just like him, and then die in space, and then where will you be? Because I sure as hell won't be taking care of you in our old age."

Sometimes his mother would shake off the dead starry emptiness in her gaze and mutter, "At least he believed in something." But that would make Frank rage all the more, and Jim feared to look upon it.

He was never as bad with Frank as Sam (Sam, who would scream and scream at their uncle for how he was stifling them, ruining them), but he'd found subtle ways to express his own dislike. _Or is it hatred_, he mused when he was nine, _because I am burning. _So he'd poke holes in the beer cans (bottles got to be too expensive) and hide Frank's shoes and kick dust on that stupid beautiful car. And for about a year, provided he didn't look his mother in the eye, that sufficed.


	3. Chapter 3

Sam was leaving. Jim snuck away from that stupid car Frank had ordered him to wash and tried to talk his brother out of it. _Don't leave me big brother, alone with the shards of our parents in the company of a drunkard. The sky is a dangerous place and mother will weep to see you enter it._ But he couldn't say that. Sam didn't understand – all he had was his own pain, and he made no room for others in that self-created darkness.

So Jim dogged his brother's heels as he marched up to Frank as they screamed at each other and Frank ordered Jim back to the car. Jim ignored him for the moment, following his brother. "I can't be a Kirk in this house," Sam declared. _You think I can be? _thought Jim, sick at heart. And he watched as his brother strode down the driveway and onto the open dusty road, Frank cursing behind him.

He dutifully turned back to the car and flipped down the visor to dust. The keys fell into his lap, and he turned them over in his hands, considering. The banked fire of his anger flared, and he jammed the keys into the ignition. He didn't care what Frank would do to him. His mother was away and couldn't be harmed, so it wasn't worth caring. The car roared to life and Jim was off, driving, flying.

The officer wanted much more than his name, and brought him in "just to ask a few questions, son, nothing to worry about." _I am no one's son_, thought Jim, still burning, but he couldn't completely blame him. He threw his anger onto the authorities, because at least they couldn't smack him, but he knew that Frank was the only person he meant to hurt. _Or my father's memory_, he sulked, sitting in a holding cell. _My stardust father and empty mother and beer-filled uncle and vanished brother._ The smart jabs he threw at the child psychologist in the office were a bit too smart and a bit too cruel, and soon she left him alone and called Frank.

Frank came to pick him up in Winona's car, a newer, more practical model. Neither spoke the whole ride home and the stormy silence continued until they were inside. Frank popped open a beer and closed the door of the kitchen, blocking Jim from creeping upstairs. "Boy, you went just a bit too far today," he hissed in a voice like the corpses of Jim's old nightmares. "I will not stand for it." Jim looked down, trying to force away the rage he could feel in his throat, choking and clawing to attack Frank. His uncle stepped forward and yanked Jim's chin up. "Listen goddamnit! I WILL NOT STAND FOR IT." His fingers bit into Jim's jaw, leaving pale marks the color of bone, and his breath stank of alcohol and ire. "I'm calling your mother in the morning. I've been telling her for a while now that you needed to get taught a lesson. She wouldn't have it, you being her baby and all. But after the stunt you pulled today, well, that oughta convince her otherwise."

Jim let his lip curl disdainfully_. I cannot care now. Mother is offplanet and I cannot care now that Sam is gone and I have to be the Kirk now what would my father do he would fly away (I tried that) he would speak and explode into stardust (so that is what I will do now)._ "Who do you think you are, my dad or something?" he spat, shaking off Frank's hands. Jim wasn't large for his age but he was faster and smarter than this dented can of a man before him. "Call my mother. I'll call her too and we'll get away. You want to know about all those mice that punctured your cans? That was me. And why your stupid car was dirty? Me. I hate you and I hate what you've done to us and I will never stop until you are gone away from my family."

And then Frank punched him. Speed Jim had but a grown man's blows he could not counter, and Frank was enraged. So was Jim, but the burning cold ball of anger that made him hit back wasn't enough, not this time. He flailed and yelled but knew it was fruitless – no one would help him, because there was no one left. Just him and his uncle and their hatred and their grief.

He ended up on the floor, nose broken and spitting blood. "You will go so far into space your daddy's precious Star Fleet will never reach you," Frank breathed, pinning him to the floor. "You'll go to school on that new colony. I don't care what my sister thinks. I'm getting you on Tarsus."


	4. Chapter 4

"Jim, honey, you know I don't want this either."

He glowered at the vid screen, the deep sympathy he normally felt toward her evaporating the more they spoke. "I don't want to go to school on some colony, and certainly not at Frank's behest."

She half smiled at his diction – her clever boy – but continued, "He means well, and I know things have been hard, hon, but it will okay. It's a flourishing place, and you'll have a good life there…" She trailed off, his icy stare cowing her.

"Any place without Frank is better," he muttered sullenly, formality lost. It wasn't her fault, how horrible her brother was to her sons when she wasn't home. But blame nevertheless leaked into Jim's tone.

"There, see, find something positive. If you behave, I'll come and visit you in a couple of years."

"You shouldn't come all the way out to a colony that I refuse to even go to."

"Jim, I'm sorry, but I think it might be best. You've got so much ahead of you, why let Earth contain you? You belong in the stars, baby." Her eyes sparked wetly, and Jim knew with sinking heart that she was thinking of his father. That he looked like his father. That he could be like his father.

"I'm not him." _I will not become him I don't even know him why must everyone know him and not me._

"Honey, that's not what I meant…"

"Yeah, okay." And he felt like crying too. He felt cruel but she didn't understand, didn't see at all how much it hurt to be his father's son.

She turned to shut down the communication with a weary smile.

"Mom, wait…" he trailed, his voice choking a bit.

"What is it?" she said quietly, patiently. So much more quietly and patiently than he deserved.

_"You shouldn'ta had kids by that idiot" no, Frank, she shouldn't have because this is hell_. "Mom, it would be nice if you came to visit me. I mean, if I go. Bye, I guess."

She beamed and Jim looked down quickly. _I was burning and now I shiver_. "Okay Jim. I'll write you. Bye, now."


	5. Chapter 5

He was among the stars at last, and he loved them. The darkness was deeper than he could have ever imagined. Iowa nights were nothing to the profound emptiness into which he now plunged. And he was happy. His hatred of Frank only grew with distance, but he had to thank his uncle for the sky, as much as it pained him to admit it. But every time he closed his eyes after staring out the window for too long, he could imagine human figures drifting past, and he shuddered in an imagined Iowa summer breeze.

And finally he found himself being shepherded onto a new world, breathing alien air and sleeping under unfamiliar stars. Somehow, though, this sky didn't seem like a graveyard, and he felt for once the stardust that begat him wasn't his father's ashes. _I am more than floating bones in space_, he thought, a fierce warmth that finally wasn't buried wrath rising through his heart.

The school was large and made of a strangely pretty sort of lunar brick. Onyx-colored and imposing, it loomed on the edge of the largest town. Inside, though, it didn't reek of beer or frustration or too many people cooped up in a starship, so Jim called it a success. _Home doesn't have to miserable_, he marveled. _I do not have anything left to fear_. He should have remembered that – dwelling and malaise did not have to be synonymous. But this exile was the closest he'd ever felt to humanity, and suddenly this little planet meant home.

The teachers were kind and actually quite smart, as colonies sometimes drew brilliance. The society was a mélange of curious scientists and laborers, and Jim was amazed that it was everything he'd ever wanted. The laborer children were similar to what he was accustomed to at home, but they'd seen the stars too, and therefore understood him much better than any other children ever had. The children of scientists, too, were more thoughtful than the upper-class brats that somehow stumbled onto the prairies of Earth.

Jim grew and laughed and learned and thought and felt. He was twelve, and he could recall with a shudder the burning emptiness of his childhood. Where that hot void had been there bloomed hope and warmth, comforting and protecting him in a world made new.

He was proficient in every class, but he had a special affinity for history. Taking extra credits in the class for over a year had gained him access to records not otherwise available to minors, and he'd read up on the stars. He learned why his mother had wept into the night, and he found himself tempted to weep too. His father had indeed been brave. But here, orbiting a different sun, it didn't seem so important. His father's ghost wasn't his definition, and Jim could read about him without fear of repercussions or pity. _I have overcome the space between my parents and I am free._

Xx

The class shivered with anticipation of the governor's arrival. Jim had never even seen Kodos, and he wanted to know what to make of this mysterious brilliance behind Tarsus IV's current prosperity. He had allowed extra rations to come to the school, and the feasts were merry. _You don't have to die to be great,_ mused Jim, waiting with the rest of the class.

"Everyone, please rise and greet Governor Kodos! Children, this is a momentous occasion!" The teacher beamed, but Jim felt his heart go cold for the first time in years. This was no great man. He had the twist of a tyrant about him, Jim could feel it. _A bully, and I will not yield to him._ He didn't know why the impression came to him, but Jim could almost feel cobwebs whisper across his skin when he looked at Kodos. He stood dutifully with his classmates as the governor entered (old memories of Frank surfaced, unwelcome _do not look him in the eye do not call attention to yourself do not even blink for this man is pain_), but the pit in his stomach that he'd almost filled in the two and half years he'd been on Tarsus suddenly gaped again.

Jim had not missed hate, but he was very good at it.


	6. Chapter 6

And suddenly the dream was shattered. The flattering mirror Tarsus had been cracked and split and Jim was once again burning into gaseous ugly burnt-out stars. Kodos had a darkness (_no, more, a deadness)_ in him, Jim was certain.

So his shock was less than that of his teachers and classmates when the first news came. _Famine famine famine_ chanted the reports. The school had feasted for the whole last months, there was no way the colony could be falling apart. _The logic doesn't follow and neither will I_, thought Jim, every time someone murmured, "Kodos is good, he'll get us through this.

The school felt very few effects of the supposed starvation, and though the meals were perhaps a bit smaller, they were sufficient. The children all managed to forget the doom that Jim could almost see hanging above them, and he was more receptive to the ominous whispers of the teachers in the hallways between classes, their eyes darting and their voices hushed.

And then the first farm children started missing days at a time. Kevin Riley, a good friend of Jim's, had been out a week. The boy was a good student, and paired with teachers' already grim looks, Jim felt increasing worry seep through the halls.

He crept out of his dorm room, the old childhood quietness coming back to him. He'd hadn't had much cause to rebel these past years, but it was nearly impossible to take a skill from Jim once he'd learned it, and sneaking around at night was far too valuable an aptitude.

It was too still outside. Nothing moved and Jim could feel the fear in the air, almost palpable, oppressive as a hot summer and infinitely more sickening. He scurried through the dark towards Kevin's house. The route led him about a mile down the road to the little town, and the stillness was broken with smoke. Acrid flames rose in the square and he ducked behind an outlying building, listening. The fumes burned his lungs, but he didn't feel it. All he could sense was anger, so much more raw than what Frank had elicited.

He slunk around the outside of the square and heard cries. Some were familiar voices. "No, please, don't take them! Stop, no-" It was Kevin. Jim's heart pounded, from fear or rage he wasn't yet certain. He moved to get a better view. A line of townspeople formed against a warehouse wall, and Kevin's parents were being dragged there, a security officer restraining Kevin. Other officers lined up opposite the people, hoisting big, old-fashioned automatic guns.

Kevin bit and clawed at the officer holding him, and Jim snuck closer, ill-formed rescue plans whirling in his mind. "It won't be so bad, kid," the officer murmured. "You're going to the reprogramming facility, and you'll come to see this as a blessing. Kodos has blessed us."

_Kodos has cursed us, and I curse him. All of you will pay for the oncoming storm._ Just as Jim prepared to leap out at the guard (he'd gotten very good at hand to hand combat in school), the security force raised their weapons and fired on the line. The flames rose higher and the stars were obscured by smoke and Jim's horrified tears and hatred twisted inside him like nothing he'd ever felt before. _Men should not do this to other men we are not animals, and I will see justice I will not stand for this I will not wait for this to happen to me I will not not not not ever see this happen again I will prevent this these people and these stars are mine I will not allow this _

Kodos's officers turned away from the carnage they had wrought (_never again_), except for the officer holding Kevin. The boy had gone limp and slouched in the man's arms, staring blankly at the wall, and Jim seized his chance. He sprang from the shadows and knocked Kevin a few feet away and hit and hit the officer who could do nothing to stop him and Jim felt the crunch of the man's nose as it broke beneath his fist and the fire around him fueled the fire within him and then the man stopped struggling. _We are animals_.

Jim stood up, panting, eyes clearing a bit. "Kevin, you have to stand up now, and come with me." _But he is so broken how I can save him from himself I am a beast I just break things (_blood dripped from his fist_) I don't fix them_. The boy stood shakily, but stepped toward the bodies of his parents. "Kevin, stop. There's nothing you can do for them but live for yourself now, so come with me. I can help." _Lies lies_ he knew nothing. Only that suddenly he would do anything to save this world for the darkness descending upon it.

Kevin turned back to him, eyes tearstained and empty. Beyond saving, but still worth trying. _We will all be corpses by the end of this, but I will not stand for it._ "Are there any others?" Jim planned desperately, flicking locations and food sources through his head until he settled on a good hiding place. "I will find a way to take care of you and anyone else we can find. Come on, Kev, we can get through this, just take my hand." And finally the boy reached up at him and they walked away from the town, down the hill back toward the school, the townspeople dead above them.


	7. Chapter 7

Kevin was safe in the woods, under the canopy of alien trees shielding him from murderers and the sky. Jim forced himself back to the dormitory, exhausted and fully aware that he had to be up in less than an hour. The line of beds was undisturbed and Jim dutifully climbed under the covers, knowing sleep was impossible. He pulled out his PADD and checked for any comms. And felt his stomach plummet yet again: _"Jim, I'll be planetside in two hours. Looking forward to seeing you. Love, Mother."_ The timestamp dated from three hours ago. _Where is she why did I ever say she could come here please let her have been delayed this was never meant to happen._

He yanked the blankets over his head, burrowing into the starless safe darkness as the dormitory door swung open. Footsteps clicked lightly, weaving around the beds and growing steadily closer. And then a pause and then a touch and Jim bit his lip hard to keep from screaming. Faking bleariness, he poked up his tousled head. "What is it, headmistress?" he asked, giving a winning, sleepy smile, knowing how well his innocent blue-eyed gaze could work on his teachers. _But whatever innocence I thought I had is gone now._

"Jim, I need you to get up. You have a very special visitor." _Is it her have they hurt her please I need her to be all right._

He nodded politely for the headmistress's sake. "I'll get dressed, if you don't mind, ma'am."

She smiled indulgently. "Of course, dear. The governor will be so glad to see you in nice things."

Governor. No, that was wrong. But he followed her into the formal reception room anyway, keeping a little half-smile on his lips to cover up his trembling. Above all, he was certain, he must not betray his knowledge of that night's killing. _Never again people will not die like that under my watch ever again._

"Ah, James." Kodos stood up from the winged armchair, the headmistress's best piece of furniture. He scuffed the perfect mahagony slightly with his perfectly polished military boot, and she frowned after the governor turned away from her. "James, my boy. We've just received the strangest guest, a friend of yours I believe. Do you know what I'm talking about?" His voice was cloying and Jim felt ill.

"No, sir, I don't understand," he lied sweetly, more for the sake of the headmistress than for Kodos. He wanted to kill Kodos, not kowtow to him.

"Oh, was it to be a surprise? I do hope I haven't ruined it. Winona, come out and see your son." Jim's breath caught, waiting to see his mother bloodied with bullet holes like Kevin's parents, and he closed his eyes for a moment until he saw stars in the dark and a body floating across and nightmarish garish lights and he was so very very tired –

"Jim, hon, look at me! I haven't seen your pretty blue eyes in so long…" He gazed blankly at her. Perfectly unharmed, a little less thin than the last time he'd seen her, but age hinting around her eyes.

"Mom, I didn't expect to see you!" Instead of the vague pity he'd felt for her when they were with Frank, he felt a great rush of devotion and found himself hugging her, clinging to her like a child. And her arms went around him like a ward, like shields, protecting him from the glaring dead-eyed sky and the florescent lights of the formal sitting room and Kodos's appraising, condescending gaze. But they weren't safe (_never again, no matter what I do to stop this safety is an illusion_). He turned his head and put his lips to her ear. "We need to get off this rock and get help for the planet. I can't explain now, but you need to trust me, please." _Be calm and listen please listen like you never did about Frank please people are dying._

She held him at arm's length, spooked by his gravity. The impossible lurked in his eyes – fear. They burned, horrified, yet were simultaneously searing with suppressed rage. "Well, I'm glad I came," she said loudly, smiling at Kodos and bringing Jim into her embrace again. "We can talk in a minute, baby," she murmured into his hair, too quiet for the others to hear. He nodded, eyes pressed into her shoulder, and Winona felt a hot tear. She blinked back a few of her own and finally released him.

"Governor, I'm so grateful for your hospitality, and I hate to impose, but do you mind if I have a moment alone with Jim? It's just been so long since we've seen each other…" Jim marveled at the frankness of her brown eyes – he had his father's looks and his father's tragedy but he was Winona's son too. He adopted the same polite, hopeful gaze for Kodos. _We can live for I still have her. We can fix our warped family. _


	8. Chapter 8

The governor's studiously benign expression froze almost imperceptibly as he gazed at the two Kirks. "Why, of course, Mrs. Kirk. I hate to intrude upon this…emotional time. Headmistress, please, let's leave them." They filed out of the room, still smiling woodenly.

Jim turned to Winona, jaw set but eyes still spooked. "We have to get out. I've got…I've got a few other obligations, but we need to leave."

She nodded slowly. "If you say so, sweetie. But…I don't understand what's wrong. Everything seemed okay last you wrote. Can you tell me what happened?"

Jim stared at his mother and considered. _Yes I saw people die but don't worry about me. Worry about escape._ "I will when we're off. But right now I don't want to say anything." _You've wept enough._

She nodded again and touched his cheek briefly. "Then let's get off this rock."

Xxx

Even as they planned their escape, Jim felt hopeless. He tried to look bright for his mother, interested for his teachers (what was left of them – more had gone missing in the past week), but it was so difficult to maintain the pretense of peace when he knew he was living on a planet at war. At night, he snuck food to Kevin and a few other ragamuffin children he'd collected. Not even his mother knew he hadn't slept more than five hours in as many days.

Winona was kept as an 'honored guest' of the governor and the school. She had a fine room and fine food (which Jim couldn't help begrudging a little, even though she didn't know how precious her hospitality was), and a servant, who was clearly a poorly disguised member of Kodos's security forces. Just one more person Jim was prepared to bludgeon to death for the life of his family (_because Kevin is family now, he has no one left_).

He was dozing off in history (and that made him as guilty as anything else because Jim so desperately wanted to learn, despite the circumstances) when a security officer knocked on the door. The teacher answered, frowning, and conferred with him for a moment before beckoning to Jim.

The officer led him downstairs to a waiting car. "Get in, brat. Kodos wants you.

Jim's heart pounded against his chest, but he kept his breathing regular and gave the officer an icy stare. "Bet you're just sorry he doesn't want you. Better luck next time, _sir_."

The officer scowled and slammed the car door. The windows were darkly tinted, and Jim could barely see where they were headed. Finally the car stopped moving and puff of air cooled the cabin. He realized too late that inhaling was what they wanted him to do, and darkness spidered into his lungs and he passed out.

Xxx

Jim came to in a room of white linoleum, white surgical light bearing down on him. He couldn't move his hands. He wondered why they'd bothered to bind him – the room was empty and there was no sign of a door. Until suddenly there was.

Kodos glided through the new opening, holding the bound wrists of Winona and dragging her to face Jim. "Hello, my boy," he said in his voice like silk. Jim restrained a snarl. He wanted to rend that silk voice, rip at his polished boots, burn the dark from his twisted soul. "Now, now, James. Please don't look at your mother like that. All I want you to do is talk to me, and Winny here is just going to sit in on our conversation."

"I don't care what you do to me, I really don't. But do anything to her and I really will kill you." Jim kept his voice flat, and was proud that it didn't shake. _I will not stand for this_. His blue eyes were freezing hot.

But Kodos only chuckled. It was the kindest, smallest laugh Jim had ever heard, and it bit at his heart and he felt himself already bleeding. _No matter what I think I can face, this man will go farther. Farther. Father. Mother. No…_ "James, just tell me where the children you are hiding are located. I promise your mother will not be gravely injured if you do that for me."

Winona looked up at that, and Jim knew how the curiosity would be consuming her, even as she was threatened. But she'd been hurt before and these were children he was protecting. "Like I could protect children," he scoffed. "I'm a child. Your questions are impossible to answer."

Kodos smiled. "Are they?" He stabbed Winona. The synthetic blade went to its hilt in her stomach and Jim felt it like it was in his breast as well, sharp and cold. She made no sound, but her mouth opened and closed and her eyes flooded with tears of pain. _She is a dead fish and we are drowning, no, floating on a rock in the sky in a graveyard..._ "James! James, we don't have much time to save her. If you tell me now, my medical corps can heal her. Where are these children, James?"

Jim gazed at his rapidly expiring mother, and glanced back at Kodos, and the look in his eyes could have killed Klingons. "I will not stand for this. She has done nothing, do you hear me, you great intergalactic bully? Nothing. You are a murderer and I will not stand for this. Where are the kids? We are everywhere. And we will kill you."

"Everywhere, you say? Would you care to be more specific?" The blade turned a little, and Winona let out a moan.

Jim forced himself not to be sick and whispered, "Mother, I'm so sorry."

Through her blood and tears Winona Kirk choked out, "Jim, baby, you're made of stardust. I love you so much." And she kicked Kodos and yanked the blade from her stomach and he blood flowed garishly and Jim felt tears streaming down his face.

He struggled in his bindings, trying to reach her before she was gone forever, but all he could do was murmur, "I love you too," until she was beyond his love just another corpse in the starscape of his mind. _Stardust? No, just dust. I'm disintegrating_.


	9. Chapter 9

But instead of dustmotes, he became quicksand. Solid until suddenly a false step could kill. Or so he would be become, but now, as he gazed at his mother's body and her blood staining the perfect polish of Kodos's boots, he felt nothing but numbness. _I am a parentless child stranded in a graveyard and soon I too will be unmade and interred._

"James, my son, you should have told me. Now look what's happened." Kodos's smile was brittle, and he fingered another knife.

"Never call me your son. I'm a Kirk, and I will not see you hurt children, or anyone else." He felt so empty, but the fire was still burning on fumes and he would not relinquish his pride. "You're too much of a coward to do your own dirty work, so get one of your goons to come kill me." Jim spat derisively on the now rose-stained linoleum floor, forcing down the bile that threatened to rise up and leave him even more impossibly empty. "I thought you were a chicken from the start. I wanted to respect you, I wanted to be-"

But Kodos had had enough of Jim's oration and this time it was Jim's breast that bore the wound. The knife slashed shallowly but painfully across his skin. He gasped with the shock of it and stared incredulously as his own blood trickled down his chest and into the sticky puddles of his mother's vanished life. Breath was hard to snatch suddenly and the air caught in Jim's throat. "Do it again," he dared, managing not to choke. And he found that he wouldn't care if Kodos injured him more. He was beyond that pain, and it would be so much easier to follow his mother into the black.

Xxx

Jim dreamt of his father, a faceless floating figure in command yellow with a crimson hole in his chest. Constellations formed and re-formed in the darkness behind his eyes but their glow was ghostly and he couldn't tear himself away.

He woke up shivering. He was in the woods, curled in on himself, fetal and pathetic. The long cut across his chest had been stitched shut and didn't pain him, and he knew he knew that the mercy meant he was trapped. _You may have freed me but I am still caged. Damn you Kodos what is your game I will not stand for more games what will you do to my people._

A twig snapped behind him and he jumped. The movement burned and he doubled over in pained surprise, holding an arm across his abdomen. Kevin stepped out from behind the foliage. "Jim! Jim, you're alive. We thought the governor had killed you. We nearly starved but I remembered what you showed me about stealing food from the empty villages and we didn't and now we're getting stronger and –"

"Kevin, get away from me."

"Jim? No, you're hurt, we can't leave…"

"Kevin, you have to get as far away from me as possible. I think Kodos is tracking me to get to you and the others. I'll put you all in danger, so you need to get away." He felt a lump just below his sternum, the source of that stabbing burn. "There's a locator…in me. Give me a knife and get out of here."

Kevin's jaw dropped. "No, I'm not doing anything like that. You need to come with us."

"Damn it, Kevin, give me a knife and leave." _I am a bomb and I will not see you burn with me_. "You trusted me once. Do it again and I promise I'll come back."

The younger boy wilted a little, but handed Jim his narrow hunting knife that he'd proudly shown off the day his father gave it to him for his birthday. _A relic_. Jim accepted it with a nod. "Scram. I'll find you when I can."

Kevin left, slowly and begrudgingly, but finally Jim was satisfied he was safely away. He felt at the little knot beneath his skin that was undoubtedly placed there by Kodos. _By the end of this I will never touch a knife again. Fists are plenty_. But he nevertheless raised the blade. For a brief moment he contemplated stabbing it straight through the tracker and into his heart, but despite his emptiness (_I must not remember mother, not now, not for awhile_), he had Kevin and the band to look after. So with the very tip, he dug out the tracker and bound the wound and tried his best not to faint.


	10. Chapter 10

And despite his wounds, both on his body and in his soul, Jim found himself the leader of an army. A small army, and on paper quite impotent. But the waifs and strays of children and farmhands he'd collected had an incontestable power: their ire. In their hunger for vengeance, they found a deep rumbling strength that Jim knew must frighten the governor. They would take Kodos down somehow.

Jim kept tabs on the saved portion of Tarsus's population he'd lived in until the arrival of his mother through the clandestine efforts of his history teacher. Ms. Sato had always been kind to him, and though she had no proof of Jim's exploits, he knew she suspected, He respected her all the more for her silence.

Kevin had become an adept thief, and he and Jim did most of the raiding for the little band. The few adults left alive had to stay out of sight or be shot on sight. Children were captured and taken to a reprogramming facility. These worried Jim more than he could admit – the brainwashing meant that it would be nearly impossible to incite a revolution in Kodos's own men. Carefully calculated battles were the only way his people could survive. _But to kill even slaves makes me sick. I am so tired of seeing people die._ Despite how much Kevin and Jim could steal, they teetered perpetually on the brink of starvation.

The worst had come when they found a child of no more than four alone in his parents' house. Blood stained the floor but the kid was unharmed, except for the crippling hunger that made him continually weep. Jim did his best – he stole everything he could, but it was a light week. Finally, when he could no longer bear the child's cries, he snuck into the school to consult Ms. Sato.

"Jim. Fancy seeing you here."

"Surprise, aren't I. How's life?"

"Just trying to keep my head down. How have you been, Jim?"

"You know, the usual. Trying not to die. Speaking of, I have a certain lack of resources in that respect."

"What do you think I can do?"

"Come on, teach. You could get me food if you wanted to. Or I can steal it, if you tell me where it is."

"Jim…I want to help you. I've been discrete. But if I tell you that, I will get both you and myself killed."

"People are already dying out there. We are way ahead of you, so I'm begging you. Get me something." He sighed and closed his eyes a moment. "Kids are dying. Students that you would have taught, except that they starved under a fascist regime that I can't save them from. I can't help them, but it would have been your job; they would have been under your protection. So help me help them. Please."

She twisted her hands together. "It's just that-"

"What, you have your own neck to save?"

"Come on, Jim, you think I haven't already helped you? You think that if anyone asks I'd tell them about whatever operation you're running? I do more for you than you know."

"But you don't feed the children."

"No."

"So tell me."

She stopped twiddling her fingers and dropped her hands into her lap. "Fine. I'll tell you where the warehouse is. But you can't come here anymore. You're going to get the kids that are still here killed along with your foolhardy self."

That was good enough for Jim. He slipped out at dusk and returned to the band's encampment, brimming with energy enough to feel like he had eaten at some point in the last three days.

"Kevin, I got the place. Let's go. How's the kid?"

Kevin slunk out of a tent, eyes red. "The kid's dead, Jim."

The fierce joy he'd felt a moment ago whooshed out of his body like a blast of winter. _I lost him it's my fault for dallying for bargaining when I could have just gotten what I wanted with a gun damn it I'm a death trap with a strung-out trail of bodies leading through the sky._

Nothing he could say would make it better. A child had starved before their eyes and nothing could ever fix that. So he had to get on with it. "Oh. Well, we still have the location. And I have a plan to take down Kodos's army."


	11. Chapter 11

"Poison?" Kevin asked in horror.

Jim nodded, eyes dead and heart set. "Poison. So they will starve too. And if they are starving, they might finally call for Federation aid." He looked around the room, daring the gaunt faces that stared back at him to criticize the plan and half praying they'd talk him out of it. _If I do this_, he thought, _they will finally come to hate me as much as I hate myself._ And truthfully, he almost welcomed their animosity. People believed him too much these days, and their trust terrified him because he knew that soon he'd fail them. Better to do it on his own terms.

"Are you sure about this?" another slightly older child asked him. "We won't be able to steal from them anymore."

"I know. But we can't get much from them anyway. If we don't make a move soon, we're going to die." _We're going to die anyway_.

The sallow-cheeked children around him began to nod. "Jim, you're right," said Kevin after awhile. "When do we start?"

Jim smiled grimly. "First we have to make the poison. So I'm going to talk to Sato."

Xx

"Jim, you're insane."

"I know. So tell me what the chemistry prof has. I need the nastiest stuff you can find."

Ms. Sato sighed. "I can't. Not this time."

Jim glared. "The last time you screwed around, a kid died. We are all on the brink of starving, so why don't you hurry the hell up this time."

"You can't speak to me like that."

_I know, but I have to, believe me_. "I don't really care. I need the chemicals." He watched her carefully, waiting.

He didn't expect her to wring her hands quite so tightly, for the decision to weigh her down so much. Her knuckles were white and she swallowed hard before finally, "Fine. Meet me tonight. Not in here, in the chem classroom. And…and be ready to say goodbye, okay, Jim?"

"What is that supposed to mean?" He felt the pit in his stomach sinking but couldn't tell anymore if it was hunger or dread.

"It means you might not have me around to help you anymore. But I'll do it." She closed her eyes and to Jim's horror her lashes were wet with tears.

"Yes, all right, anything." He turned to slip outside the window. "And Ms. Sato?"

She cleared her throat. "What?"

"Thank you. Thank you for everything. I'll see you tonight."

Xx

He waited in the forest by himself until it was dark. He couldn't face going back to the band. Kevin had them well in hand, and sometime he was still worried he was being tailed. Kodos had been worryingly quiet for the past week – only one roundup and firing squad. They'd collected a few more survivors who hadn't been in such bad shape. It was only a matter of time, though, Jim knew, until the common people completely ran out of food. It was getting cold and the hidden emergency stores were nearly out and he began to wish the whole damn planet would explode. _I want to die in fire like my father not in ice on this hell as evil keeps living I want to burn_. But Jim felt the fire that had nearly consumed him had banked and now he was empty with its absence. A dead star consuming itself in its own darkness. He couldn't remember warmth or a full belly or the sound of his mother's voice and he wanted to lie down and sleep until the black hole consumed him. _But the others suffer so much more_. He stood up to meet Ms. Sato.

It was trickier to scale the wall to the chemistry classroom – it was closer to the security station and better lit. But Jim managed. He reached the window just as Ms. Sato was unlocking the door. She looked up at him and nodded for him to open the window.

"We have to move fast. I poked around this afternoon and I think your best bet would be dimethylmercury. It will take about a month for the symptoms to show up, so be careful not to steal anything. Now take it and go."

Jim nodded and accepted the package. "What about goodbye?"

"Oh. Goodbye, Jim. And good luck." Her smile was brittle and too large.

"Thank you, Ms. Sato. But why-"

"Jim, you have to go now. Get out that window right now." The firm urgency in her voice forced him to move, and suddenly he realized that footsteps were pounding outside the door. He ducked his head beneath the window frame just as the door flew open. A single gunshot. Men's voices. Jim clambered down the wall, numb with cold from both the night and his heart.

As soon as he'd scurried back to the woods, Jim opened the package. In it was a long vial of the poison and folded piece of paper.

_Jim,_

_I'm sorry for what is going to (just did?) happen to me. The chemistry professor is a rat, and I knew as soon as you asked me that he would betray me. But it's all right. What you're doing is worthwhile if you can pull it off, worth much more than my life. Keep yourself and your kids safe, and get off Tarsus. I know if anyone could do it, it would be you. Be extremely careful with the dimethylmercury. If you touch it, you'll end up dying from it eventually too. Put the entire vial in their well, and soon enough they'll die. _

_Above all, good luck._

_H. Sato_

Jim sat down in the crisp, cold leaves and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying to not sob. _One more person who got herself killed for a cause she believed in only for me. I am a murderer_.


	12. Chapter 12

He tried to wipe the grimness off his face before going back to the others. Tried to get the chapped lips to smile and the eyes dead above the mouth to look anything but empty. It was a pointless exercise, but one whose futility he at least managed to conceal. Kevin didn't even look concerned as Jim slunk back inside the husk of a building they were calling home that week.

"Did you get the poison? Are you sure this is the best plan?" Kevin asked.

Jim smiled quickly, more a bearing of teeth than an expression. "It's all we have. And as much as I don't want to kill people, the fact remains that we will die if they don't." Kevin's face fell but he nodded in agreement. Jim clapped him on the shoulder. "All we have to do is last another month, and we should be okay. Now come on, let's get this started."

Xx

Sometimes he amazed himself, the cheer he could force through his voice, the bright sharpness he could force into his eyes. Another village was razed, hundreds more people were dead, and Jim could barely make time to bind wounds. Instead, he had to go end more lives. With a smile on his face so no one could see his empty soul.

He didn't let anyone come with him into the warehouse. Sato had been a little confused: there was no well to poison, and he himself realized that he didn't have enough dimethymercury to poison all the food. However, the water kegs could be easily breached and the poison would be nearly imperceptible.

It was so easy. Too easy. But no one accosted him as he crept out of the compound, and he began to wonder if everyone was already dead. The planet seemed empty, and Jim was suddenly acutely aware of their position alone in space, where no one would ever go on purpose. _The Federation will never rescue us_, he realized. _Why should they bother. This isn't a final frontier, it's a wasteland. _

Xx

The month limped by, and Jim's mind wandered again to his parents. No, his mother was wrong; he had never been stardust. He was the space between the lights, he was the void, he was nothing and everything and he couldn't bare it. The gnawing in his stomach had crescendoed and died and now he couldn't even remember hunger. He gave all he could to the younger children and only when Kevin reminded him to keep at little for himself did he eat begrudgingly.

He watched as children and the few adults left alive after raids starved slowly around him. The small army he'd had at the height of summer had dwindled until there were barely thirty people hanging on. If hunger didn't strike them down, the cold did. Jim marveled that he was still as well as he was: the inner fire he had believed dead seemed to keep some embers in his belly to prevent his own collapse.

Finally there was a week to go before the month was up. Kodos had made few attacks, and Jim was almost pleased when he went to spy on their compound a few times: the officers were growing lethargic and their drills had slowed down to nothing. Three days before the end of the month, Jim went again and witnessed a funeral. _So it begins and so it will end_, he thought. He felt no pity, no remorse. Guilt, yes, but he realized that guilt would be with him forever and to acknowledge it over and over again just brought pain. He had barely the strength to plan, let alone to torture himself.

When Jim had looked his fill, he began to slither back down the embankment to head to the camp. He could still move silently, despite his increasing weakness. He stopped to lean against a tree for a moment, questions flitting through his mind. When had he last eaten? A week ago. When had he last drunk? Yesterday? The day before? He shivered a little and felt a warm hand against his arm. His eyes flew open, though he only expected one of the stronger adults from his dwindling band.

"Oh, dear James, how ill you look! Please, I insist you come with me to share a meal." Kodos smiled kindly, gazing at Jim with steel eyes. Jim attempted to struggle and Kodos's hand moved from his arm to his neck. "No, my boy none of that." Darkness descended.


	13. Chapter 13

Jim woke up with a horrible ache in his wrists and a strange lack of balance and he struggled until he found that he was tied against a wall, arms crossed behind his back and his full weight leaning forward. The room was dim and he could barely see the door across from him. Probably the basement of one of the compounds, judging by the earthy smell and high slit window. In the grim-filtered dusk, he could make out a small glass by the door, full to the brim. He tried to swallow and found he couldn't, and he gasped involuntarily, feeling like a suffocating fish. Running his tongue over his split lips, he closed his eyes and attempted to expunge the water glass from his memory.

He must have slept, for when he opened his eyes again there was a little more light trickling through the window and cursed glass seemed closer. Thinking was becoming increasingly difficult, and the longer his eyes were open, the more the light seemed to bore into them until his eyes felt scorched. The glass was gloriously clear, and the light sparked off the brim casting a shimmering shadow on the dirt floor. Jim felt as if he was looking into the sun itself and then his eyes slid shut and he was lost in space again, floating dead above the world and half-hoping he would not awake again.

Xxx

"James. James, I want you to wake up now." Kodos's voice was saccharine and no matter how dead Jim felt, he would not do Kodos's bidding. The embers in his heart stirred a little and through the haze of dehydration he felt cleansed by the flame. He faked unconsciousness.

"James!" _Such insistence. I will never do as he desires he will never win -_ A gloved hand smacked him hard across the face and he couldn't stop his eyes from flaring open and a brief exhalation from crossing his painfully cracked lips.

Kodos smiled. "Ah, James, I knew you'd come to. Now, you must be thirsty. Drink, please." He proffered the gorgeous glass, which was slightly less beautiful now that Jim could see it up close. Just a cheap chunk of synthetic materials superheated until transparent. _I must not become that glass. I must not be transparent._

Jim managed to croak, "Not thirsty, thanks. But you can go drown yourself in the stuff."

Kodos's little simper made Jim's skin crawl. "Now, now, my boy. A month ago I might have. But you've been a busy little bee, haven't you? My men have shown me that this water is not quite so pure as I would like. Just like the population of this little colony. Of course, with your band of ragamuffins mostly starved out, it's much closer to perfection."

Jim's heart sank but he couldn't stop the bravado now. "Watch who you're calling ragamuffins, old man." His throat and tongue were so dry that the words came out as a thin ill-formed whisper. He hated the weakness almost as much as he hated the man who had caused it. If any moisture had been left in his desiccated, starved frame, he would have wept.

"James, why are you still fighting me? The only way you're going to live now is if you drink and listen to me."

_That would kill me more than dehydration or starvation or any wounds you could inflict._ "I told you, I'm really not thirsty."

"Everyone thirsts for something," Kodos hissed, setting down the cup and grasping Jim's already aching throat. "Even me. I don't want to see you die easily, my child."

Jim tried to spit in the governor's face, but all he could manage was a shallow cough. "Good. I'm not going down without a fight," he choked.

The grip loosened suddenly. "No. Of course, you're right. Well, my boy, know that your little friends fought have drunk their fill. And you need only join them." He flicked out a narrow knife. "Don't forget I was here, James," he murmured as he drew the point lightly across Jim's neck and then, to Jim's surprise, slashed the ropes around his wrists.

The blade was so sharp that Jim barely felt it until after Kodos had left and until he had slumped forward to his knees. He was too weak to stand, and watching his crimson blood trickle from the cut made his empty stomach churn. He didn't have much blood left to lose, he thought.

He had no idea how long he knelt there, but he stared at the water glass and his dripping blood until he felt faint and his blood turned to silver star dust and the water turned ruby colored and he couldn't think he could only observe. _Water transmuted to blood which is thicker than water which is wetter than space which is lighter than air which is deader than his dead father Jim Kirk is nothing now he has floated away._

Jim took a sip of the water. And a gulp. And then the glass was drained.

The world snapped into focus again and Jim gaped in horror at the empty glass before him. And he realized in drinking it, he'd condemned himself to an even slower and more painful death than starvation. He hadn't tasted the dimethylmercury, but it was there, a lethal tribute to Kodos's victory.

He'd lost. But he wasn't dead yet, and he wasn't about to go down without a fight. The cut across his throat had clotted and dried, and the water had cleared his head and given him the strength to stand. For how long, he didn't know, but he probably wouldn't need much longer. He cast about the small prison for anything to use as a weapon or a lock pick. His eyes landed on the iron bars across the window, but they were too high and he was shaky enough with a little pacing. He tried the door anyway and found that it opened. _Kodos expected this. But Kodos does not expect me. And I am not felled yet. _


End file.
